1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hand-held edger suitable for operation of trimming lawn grasses or the like, for example, at a border of a lawn or a boundary between different levels in a lawn or an edge of a bunker in a golf course.
2. Description of the Prior Art
An example of a conventional hand-held edger of this type is shown in FIG. 5. FIG. 5 shows the main portion (portion on or near the ground) of a hand-held edger 10. This hand-held edger 10 comprises a tubular supporting rod 14 connected at its one end, for example, to an air-cooled two-cycle gasoline engine or motor as a prime mover (not shown), and a gear box 20 having a shape of a stepped cylinder connected to the other end (lower end) of the tubular supporting rod 14.
To an output shaft of the gear box 20, which horizontally extends toward the rear side of the drawing, a rotary blade 22 is attached which is driven by power transmitted from the engine through a drive shaft 16 disposed in the supporting rod 14 and the gear box 20. A safety cover member 12 having side surfaces of substantially sector shape is fixed to the gear box 20 between the supporting rod 14 and the rotary blade 22 by means of bolts 24 or the like.
A traveling wheel 17 is rotatably supported by a rear portion 12b formed behind the gear box 20 and protruding from a circumferential wall 12a of the safety cover member 12 which circumferentially surrounds the rotational locus of the rotary blade 22.
When a trimming operation is conducted using the hand-held edger 10 having such a structure, grasses which have grown beyond a border of a lawn or the like are usually trimmed in such a manner that the rotary blade 22 is rotated with the safety cover member 12 and the gear box 20 kept apart from the ground G (margin of a lawn or the like) at a proper height by lifting the supporting rod 14 while using the traveling wheel 17 as a fulcrum.
In such a conventional hand-held edger 10 as above, however, there is a problem that the lower surfaces 20a and 12c of the gear box 20 and the safety cover member 12 are scraped against the ground during trimming, and consequently abrasion thereof is caused.
Besides the above problem, there are problems concerning operational properties in that the lower portions of the gear box 20 and the cover member 12 tend to be caught by a lawn grass or the like during deep mowing, that the entire body is likely to wobble when the edger is used while keeping the traveling wheel 17 lifted (for example, when trimming operation is conducted at a narrow place or a configurationally complicated place), and that traveling stability (in particular, straight advance properties) is not satisfactory even in a flat place.